Most photographic film cameras, particularly motor operated types, rewind the filmstrip entirely into the film cartridge at the conclusion of picture taking. With the growth of distributed photofinishing operations, e.g. one-hour minilab photofinishing processors, and particularly with the emergence of kiosk style photofinishing equipment, increasing attention has been directed to techniques for extracting exposed film from the film cartridge without destroying the cartridge in the process.
An early technique is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,074,870 to Kaufman, which discloses the use of a pair of flexible metal blades inserted through the plush light block at the mouth of the cartridge, a longer upper blade and a shorter lower blade, the lower blade having a curved anterior end portion that forms a mouth between the upper and lower blades. Combined with synchronized rotation of the film core, reciprocal movement of the blades urges the film tongue between the upper and lower blades where it is captured and pulled out of the cartridge mouth by removal of the two blades. The efficacy of this arrangement depends heavily on the reliability of forcing the film tongue into engagement between the two blades and it has not been entirely successful.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,321 to Nishibata et al. represents a commercially available film extraction mechanism made by Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd., of Japan. With this tabletop apparatus, an operator positions the cartridge in a nest in such a way that a stubby, relatively stiff metal blade with a curved anterior end is forced into mouth of the cartridge for use in stripping the film tongue from the remainder of the roll in the cartridge. Upon actuation, a flexible metal blade with high friction strips on its flanks is inserted into the cartridge, using the stubby metal blade as a guide, and grips the film while subsequently being withdrawn from the cartridge. The curved anterior end of the stubby metal blade is intended to guide the film out of the cartridge. However, this guide blade is always at a fixed position in the cartridge and does not always reach to the outer layer of the film roll, the diameter of which is a function of the length of the film strip as determined by the number of exposures on the roll. As a consequence, the film tongue does not always engage the anterior end of the stubby metal blade thereby increasing the chance of failure in the extraction process. Only the tongue is extracted with this apparatus, being deposited in a collection chamber after it passes beyond the stubby metal blade. As such, the apparatus, by itself, is not usable when the entire film roll must be extracted. Moreover, since the cartridge is manually loaded into the nest and requires some manual intervention to ensure proper insertion of the stubby stripper blade into the cartridge mouth, it is not suitable for use by untrained consumers as would be the case for an in-store kiosk application.
Patent Application Publication U.S. 2003/0133710 A1 assigned to Eastman Kodak Company, assignee of the present invention, discloses a film extraction apparatus that utilizes a flexible, elongated film stripper finger 164 inserted into the film cartridge. The finger has a downwardly curved anterior end and the finger is inserted sufficiently far as to insure engagement of the stripper finger with the outer layer of the film roll regardless of the diameter of the roll. An extractor finger 171 with high friction flank surfaces is then inserted into the cartridge to engage and extract the film tongue as the extractor finger is withdrawn from the cartridge. The stripper finger serves to strip and separate the film tongue from the remainder of the film roll and to guide the tongue out of the mouth of the cartridge. While effective as a stripper and guide, insertion of the flat flexible stripper finger with its downwardly curved anterior end is not as reliable as one would like causing undesired jamming events during the insertion process.